Yesterday the App Store approved version 2.0 of Deutscher Schildfinder (German PlateFinder), released in both German and English. (For iOS devices with German as the primary language, the app appears in German (named Schildfinder); for other languages, the app uses English and is called German PlateFinder.

Version 2.0 runs universally on all iOS devices, from the iPhone up to and including the largest iPad. On iPads and iPhone 6+ and 6s+, the app appears with a split view when in landscape mode. The table of codes and places appears as a popover on those devices when in portrait mode.

For the first time, Wikipedia pages use the new Safari view, with options to bookmark, print, share on social media—everything that the iOS Safari browser supports.

Work is underway on a “plus” version of Schildfinder/German PlateFinder. Thank you for your patience.

Six months have passed since I promised that the new version of German PlateFinder would be released by the end of 2015. Well (like so many software projects), it is late.

The new version is up and running with a Master/View Controller (where, in landscape mode, the list of codes/places appear on the left and the maps/web pages appear on the right). It runs on all sizes of iPads and on the “plus” iPhone versions. (It might even run on the smaller iPhones and iPods.)

When I tell people about the seven PlateFinder apps we’ve written for iOS, they always ask, “What’s a PlateFinder good for? Is it for spying on people and learning all about their identify?”

I tell them “No.”

Certain states in the U.S. and some countries (Germany, for example) include codes in vehicle license plates that tell what county or other government body issued the license plate. This is helpful for the curious ones among us who may wonder where a car we see on the road is from (or, at least, where they used to be from, at the time they licensed the car.)

Of the seven PlateFinders written so far, the German PlateFinder (available in German as Deutscher Schildfinder) is by the far the most involved. The first version had more than 400 codes; the current version has over 600 … and there are likely still some missing ones. It has both English and German language versions.

During the month of August, iAppWriters updated all the PlateFinders. Here is what we did to the U.S. state PlateFinders:

Updated the apps to the iOS 7 “look” (just in time for iOS 8 to be released in September).

Improved the legibility of the introduction page (viewed by touching “Intro” or “Erklärung” buttons on the main page) by adding full support for HTML5.

Fixed minor bugs

The German PlateFinder (Deutscher Schildfinder) now works on iPad. It has had more downloads than all the other PlateFinders combined. (Also noteworthy, the German language version–Deutscher Schildfinder–has had more downloads than all other apps combined!)

We continue to work on the German PlateFinder

We’re contemplating enhancements for the PlateFinders, as well as our next apps. If you have a burning desire for us to add a feature, feel free to contact apps@iappwriters.com or tweet us at @iAppWriters.

During the past year we’ve received periodic reports about missing license plate codes. We’ve responded by adding those codes.

This month we decided to dig deeper so look for additional codes.

We’ve found a large number of additional codes, and are currently adding them to the App. (We’re currently adding new codes that begin with “H”.) Hopefully you’ll see a new version of the App within the next two weeks or so.

Thanks for feedback about the German PlateFinder (Deutscher Schildfinder on iOS devices with German as the default language). It is our most popular “PlateFinder”–by far. (The German language version of the App has more downloads than all other PlateFinders combined.)

Last week a new version of the bilingual German PlateFinder – Deutscher Schildfinder appeared on the iOS App Store. This is the first iPad version of our most popular app for identifying license plates–in Germany. (During the past six months, customers have downloaded more German PlateFinder apps than all our other PlateFinders together! … and most of the downloads are the German-language version.)

The Montana PlateFinder is our second most popular PlateFinder. Watch for a new version of that app “real soon now.”